The technology relates to a vehicle traveling control apparatus that controls follow-up traveling allowing for traveling while following a preceding vehicle ahead of an own vehicle.
In recent years, in vehicles such as automobiles, a follow-up traveling system has been known in which an own vehicle travels while following a preceding vehicle traveling ahead of the own vehicle. As disclosed in Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2004-322916, the follow-up traveling system to follow a preceding vehicle automatically controls a steering wheel, a transmission, an engine, and a brake by capturing the preceding vehicle with a radar or a camera, for example. The follow-up traveling system is effective in a case of traveling a road without a lane marker or a white line on a surface of the road. The follow-up traveling system is effective as well in a case where, during low-speed traveling in traffic jam or in other situations, an inter-vehicle distance between the own vehicle and the preceding vehicle decreases to limit the front visual field, which makes it difficult to recognize a lane line such as a white line during low-speed traveling in traffic jam or in other situations.